Chapter 6 - THE MISSING MINUTE
Specialist Noah Kim was on overnight desk duty when Maya reached the security office.
He looked up from three monitors. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Neither is whoever opened my locker.”
That got his attention.
Maya showed him the photo and the message.
Noah hesitated, then pulled up the gym feed.
“Training room camera records continuously.”
He searched the morning timestamp.
07:41.
Rourke entered the gym.
07:44.
Connor joined him.
No audio.
Rourke pointed toward the mat and spoke for nearly a minute.
Connor’s expression changed.
Then the video jumped.
07:45 became 07:47.
Two minutes missing.
Noah frowned. “That’s not normal.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe from the local cache.”
His fingers moved over the keyboard.
A second window opened.
There it was.
The missing clip.
This version had low-quality audio from the room microphone.
Rourke’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“…make her quit. I don’t care how.”
Connor said something too soft to hear.
Rourke answered clearly.
“Do it, and the seat is yours.”
Maya felt cold.
“Copy it,” she said.
He inserted a drive.
The progress bar reached 34 percent.
Then every monitor went black.
Noah sat up. “What the—”
The lights in the office stayed on.
Only the system had died.
A key turned in the outer door.
Maya and Noah looked at each other.
Footsteps entered the hallway.
Slow.
Heavy.
Noah yanked the flash drive out.
The door handle moved.
Maya slipped the drive into her sleeve.
The door opened.
First Sergeant Rourke stood there.
He looked at Noah.
Then Maya.
Then the dark monitors.
“Interesting,” he said.
May you like
His eyes dropped to Maya’s hands.
“Very interesting.”
